


The Box

by Aki_Aiko



Series: Resurrection Waltz [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), hellraiser
Genre: Cenobites - Freeform, Hellraiser - Freeform, Torture, forced body modification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:45:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6195637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aki_Aiko/pseuds/Aki_Aiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is allowed to roam free and explore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Box

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, this is very weird and has some non-graphic torture and disturbing images.

Sherlock turned the small box over in his hands, feeling the grooves of intricate engravings under his fingertips. Its metal sides were sharp enough to draw blood if he put even a bit more pressure on the corners. His research about this box, this Lament Configuration, had yielded results so ludicrous, he was tempted to delete it on principle.

Monsters. Demonic rites. Superstitious idiots, the whole lot. Clearly, the box contained some sort of hallucinogen which was released into the air upon opening. Which was why he now cradled it on his lap while he hiding in his bedroom. John would be against this sort of experimentation, so Sherlock worked the box’s silver surface in solitude. 

John would be angry, of course. But Sherlock would weather that anger as he always did, with head held high and a smirk that said, ‘I know more than you could possibly imagine.’ Because he did and John would remember that once the case was solved and all danger passed.

The sliver of metal that flipped out shouldn’t have come as a surprise, yet Sherlock still gasped at the sharp pain which suddenly blossomed from his the palm of his hand. Blood spurted out, staining the bed sheets red. Grimacing, he pulled a cover off one of his pillowcases and tied it around the wound to staunch the bleeding, then went back to the puzzle in front of him.

The first hallucination was auditory and came with the sound of bells tinkling faintly in the distance. The next, visual, a light glowing out from the walls. Sherlock paused long enough to admire the effect, then went back to the puzzle box.

After the bells and the light came the strongest hallucination he’d ever had, even counting the many highs of his not that far ago youth. The walls part and creatures from a nightmare stepped out from a gaping darkness.

Sherlock’s eyes swept over their leader, quickly cataloguing what information he could. The man-for that’s what he was under the costume-enjoyed pain, both giving and receiving, and right now was looking at Sherlock’s lean frame with hunger.

“Interesting,” Sherlock murmured.

+

The world passed in a haze of sweet, delicious pain, which left him gasping and trembling, a pool of blood under his dangling feet. The hooks suddenly jerked from his skin, taking strips of skin with them. The sensation was a torture and a relief. He wanted it to end, but oh how they’d made him enjoy the waiting.

“What are you doing?” asked the woman with the metallic voice. Sherlock trembled, unsure how to answer, but a glance up showed her staring at their leader, whose pale fingers carded through Sherlock’s matted hair as he crouched like a dog at their feet.

“It would be a shame,” the creature said, “to waste such a mind on simple suffering.” He said back towards his companions and added to his new acolyte, “Explore this world at your leisure. We have time enough for games.”

All the light seemed to be sucked from the room-this prison-at their departure and yet the darkness felt brighter for their absence. Sherlock gave himself a few minutes to rest, then pushed himself wearily to his feet. His whole body ached. But his transport could wait.

Difficult as it was to concentrate with his skin flayed open and stinging, Sherlock managed to take in the dark walls of his surroundings. The layer of thick slime coating the walls came away in clumps on his finger and tasted brackish, like swamp water. Wherever he was, it wasn’t any place he could identify. Might not even have been English.

In the background, he could hear moans, sexual, primal, painful. They were irrelevant, though, so he ignored them as best he could and continued to stumble around in the semi-darkness. This place was not just a torture chamber, it was a maze! No matter which way Sherlock turned, he could never find his way back again. Eventually, he started walking randomly.

Sometimes, he thought he saw shadows moving in his peripheral vision, where things were distorted and flickered like fairy lights. But they were only shapes, just his subconscious grasping for an escape. Or maybe his mind palace taking over. Either way, he wanted out of this place. Baker Street was waiting, and John.

Sherlock stumbled along, avoiding the various phantoms along the way, until he stepped out of a corridor and onto a broad ledge. From where he stood, he could see the twists and turns of the labyrinth he’d been fruitlessly navigating. Above it all, the box hung and rotated, as large as a lightless moon. The sight of it triggered what seemed like a distant memory of bed clothes and his own hands not yet coated with the sticky blood they were now gloved in.

Struck with the sudden urge to see, he crept out to the edge and looked into the abyss. A storm hung around the box’s hazy form and obscured the fine details of its surface design. From below came a scraping sound, as if something were crawling its way up the wall. Sherlock heart sped up and he quickly backed away.

It was a box. Simple, made of metal, and left open like a waiting elevator. In or out, stay or go. Sherlock hovered on the edge of uncertainty. This box could be his coffin…or his ride to freedom. The thoughts of Baker Street got his feet moving those first few steps, then he was tumbling forward, toward possible salvation.

The walls inside were smooth, without any defining features, not even buttons to guide his way. There was a door, however, and it slid shut, plunging him into complete darkness. Sherlock scrabbled at the smooth walls until his fingers bled, even as a loud grating sound signaled the…thing…he was trapped in was headed back down from where it came.

His heavy, panicked breathing filled the small, enclosed space, filling it with completely. He almost didn’t hear the soft whirring by his ear. By the time it registered, he’d already felt something metal tighten around his neck like a noose. The sounds of more whirring were drowned out by his choked attempts to breathe, then everything was overshadowed by pain, radiating from his face, his eyes. 

He was on fire! Had they set him on fire…?

The box continued its long slide, silent, though inside a transfiguration was occurring amid blood, pain, and screams.

+

_“So tell me, brother mine.” Mycroft leaned forward, hands planted on his oversized desk. “You are clearly at a disadvantage here. Pinned like a bug. What should you do?”_

_Sherlock blinked up at the blindingly bright contours of his brother’s figure from where he knelt on the floor. Mycroft was ringed with a halo and blurred about the edges. Only his face was clear, as was the smirk on his lips._

_“Poor Sherlock,” Moriarty crooned from his straight-jacket. “Stuck in a box, nowhere to go. There’s a metaphor in here somewhere, isn’t there?”_

_“Oh, shut up,” Mycroft snapped._

_“Think, Sherlock.” Molly stepped towards him, close enough to lose her halo of light. “You’ve lost blood, your body’s going into shock. You’re going to die?”_

_“What do you do?” Mycroft murmured._

_Moriarty laughed and rattled his chains._

_…chains…_

_“What do you do?”_

_Sherlock bowed his head and said, “I give up.”_


End file.
